Nonvolatile memories can be important elements of integrated circuits due to their ability to maintain data absent a power supply. Phase change materials have been investigated for use in nonvolatile memory cells. Memory cells containing phase change materials are often referred to as phase change memory cells. The phase change memory cells may be incorporated into random access memory (RAM). Such memory may be referred to as phase change RAM (PCRAM).
Chalcogenide materials have been of particular interest for utilization in PCRAM. Chalcogenide materials are capable of stably transitioning between amorphous and crystalline phases. Each phase can exhibit a particular resistance state. Specifically, an amorphous state exhibits a relatively high resistance, and a crystalline state exhibits a relatively low resistance. The different resistance states can be used to represent the logic values of the memory cell.
Although chalcogenide materials show promise for utilization in nonvolatile memory cells, there are often difficulties encountered in attempting to incorporate the chalcogenide materials into integrated circuitry. Accordingly, it would be desired to develop improved methods for fabrication of memory cells containing chalcogenide materials.